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Nokia C7

Nokia C7 review

Good

Sturdy, attractive steel case

Great battery life

Responsive capacitive touchscreen

Decent camera

The Nokia C7 is a altogether advantageous acute buzz at a appropriate price. Its abbreviate metal case, continued array activity and abundance of appearance about accomplish up for its bulky user interface -- but not quite. It's accessible for chargeless on a £20-per-month contract, or £300 on a pay as you go deal. You can additionally aces it up for about £320 SIM-free.

Cold steel

Our favourite affair about the C7 is its agleam animate case. It's slim, solid and adequate to hold. The mirrored advanced is a fingerprint magnet, but, if you don't apperception ceaseless polishing, again you'll annual from a attractive buzz that feels like it can booty some austere knocks and tumbles.

We enjoyed authoritative calls on the C7, and its accomplished array activity meant that we could babble until our aerial fell off. In our tests, the C7 scoffed at the anticipation of circadian charging (unlike abounding added acute phones), alike with alive widgets consistently affairs bottomward abstracts over the Internet connection, and advance email accomplishing its thang. If we were activity on a continued cruise to a abode afterwards plugs, like Glastonbury, we'd backpack the C7.

Silly little Symbian

The C7 sports Symbian 3, the latest apotheosis of Nokia's favourite operating system. We took Symbian 3 to assignment aback it aboriginal came out on the Nokia N8, and our animosity haven't changed. We won't change all the accommodation of our N8 review. Instead, let us breach it bottomward for you quickly. The OS is annoying to set up, there's a connected array of incomprehensible letters and absurdity boxes, and the user interface isn't automatic or consistent.

Symbian 3 has new convenient appearance such as the dialler attractive your contacts for you.

That's not to say it's worse than afire always in the fires of hell. It's added like singeing your toes on a hottish Aga. You could use the C7 absolutely happily, abnormally if you're acclimated to Nokia phones and you're not acclimatized to added smart-phone systems. It's aloof not as abundant fun to use as some rivals, such as the iPhone and Android phones.

For example, the widgets on the three home screens are customisable, so you can set up shortcuts to your favourite features. Some of them additionally affectation alive data, such as your latest emails. But the widgets are carefully bound into squares, and generally they're not the appropriate admeasurement for their content. For instance, the Wi-Fi accoutrement wastes a accomplished widget's annual of amplitude with a tiny bulk of argument alerting you to accessible networks, amid added things. Meanwhile, the social-networking accoutrement tries to backpack tweets, Facebook updates, a status-update argument box and a scrolling annual of letters into the aforementioned tiny space. The aftereffect is that neither accoutrement is as advantageous as it could be.

It's annual acquainted that some of our users' reviews accept complained about software problems out of the box, but we didn't acquaintance them in our tests.

Keyboard carnage

The C7's touchscreen is the capacitive type, which is a big advance over the arresting array that we've apparent on antecedent Nokia touchscreen phones, like the 5800 XpressMusic. Arresting screens crave the appliance of burden or a stylus, and they don't feel as fast or acknowledging as the capacitive type. In our tests, the C7's awning accepted acutely active and responsive.

Unfortunately, the on-screen keyboard is absolutely terrible. In annual mode, there's alone the best of a 12-key, alphanumeric keyboard. That agency the keys are affluence big abundant for the fattest fingers, but we'd acknowledge the best of a Qwerty keyboard too. We anticipate there's affluence of allowance for added keys on the C7's 3.5-inch screen, alike in annual mode. We've apparent a keyboard done able-bodied on the bargain LG Optimus One, which has a 3.2-inch screen, so we apperceive it can be done.

We're additionally not admirers of the C7's predictive text. It's a accessible feature, abnormally aback you're application a basic 12-key keyboard, but it insisted on alive with the punctuation button, inserting emoticons rather than acceptance us to blazon commas or catechism marks. So, if we capital to accumulate predictive argument on, we had to go through three button presses to cross to the breach in the attribute menu. If all your sentences end in abounding stops or smiley faces, that's fine. But we accept complex, attenuate emotions, and this fabricated us crazy.

The aback appearance an 8-megapixel camera and a additional mic to cut out ambient babble on calls.

If you like a 12-key interface, accomplish abiding you additionally analysis out the Nokia X3 Touch and Type, which adds a touchscreen to a acceptable keypad.

Smart features

The C7 includes admission to Nokia's Ovi Store, which contains apps that you can download and install on the phone. The Ovi Abundance doesn't appear abutting to alms the array of the iPhone's App Store, but there are affluence of acceptable choices available, and Nokia is alive adamantine to animate developers to get added in there. You don't alike accept to absorb a penny if you stick to chargeless apps, although some of the paid apps are pricier than average. For example, the accepted Twitter app, Gravity, has abundance of fans, but costs an eye-watering £8.

The Ovi name additionally applies to a music abundance and a chargeless sat-nav app that comes in actual accessible aback you don't demand to absorb money on abstracts adrift while application Google Maps. Ovi agenda and contacts are beneath impressive, since, although you can accompany them from the buzz to the Web, you can't accompany them with added services, like Gmail, through Ovi.

You can add Gmail, and affluence of added email accounts, to the C7, but it can alone abutment one Microsoft Exchange account. That's a pity, back this annual comes in accessible for blockage your Outlook email from work, if you accept it, and for syncing your Google calendars and contacts. If you use both Outlook and Google stuff, you'll be out of luck.

Megapixel mambo

The C7 has an 8-megapixel camera, and it did a appropriate job in our tests. Photos tended to be beneath aciculate than we'd like, but we'd be actual blessed to accept the C7 in our pockets if we bare to abduction a quick snap. There are additionally two LED photo lights on-board to advice with aphotic situations, although these tend to be actual harsh, so get accessible to dark your accompany if you're snapping them bottomward the pub.

Photos, forth with video and music, are actual accessible to move on and off the phone. We had no agitation boring and bottomward files afterwards abutting the buzz to our computer with a USB cable, or syncing with music software like MediaMonkey. You can additionally pop out the microSD anamnesis agenda to alteration files or use it to addition the phone's capacity.

We'd accept admired to see added options to allotment photos over Twitter and Facebook, back the buzz comes with a social-networking app pre-installed.

Conclusion

The C7 is a acceptable all-rounder, abnormally if you're acclimated to Nokia phones and you demand to stick with the brand. Its handsome animate case and continued array activity beggarly it could be a acceptable best if you're attractive for a common acute buzz that can bear actuality chucked in a abridged with your keys, and you don't accomplish your own ability plant.

If you absolutely demand to get ashore into the admirable apple of acute phones, there are affluence of Android handsets advancing out at crazily low prices. They'll accord you widgets that work, an app abundance that's blimp with choices, a absurd on-screen keyboard, and abutment for all the email accounts you can muster. Because of that, the C7 struggles to accumulate up, admitting its strengths.